The fake heiress Anna Sorokin, known as Anna Delvey
New York, United States, 2016 and 2017
This case is a work of fiction. The characters, names, places and events in the game do not portray real people. The account below is a factual summary, based on public sources, of the case that served as inspiration.
Anna Sorokin, born in Russia and raised in Germany, moved through New York high society between 2016 and 2017 under the name Anna Delvey, presenting herself as a German heiress to a fortune of about 60 million euros held abroad. She lived in luxury Manhattan hotels, such as the 11 Howard in SoHo, handed out hundred-dollar tips and said she was setting up a private art club with a gallery, a restaurant and pop-up shops. The hotels eventually found that there was no credit card on file and that her bills went unpaid.
According to the Manhattan district attorney's office, she forged bank statements to apply for a $22 million loan for the club. The request was denied, but one bank did lend her $100,000, which was never repaid. She also deposited bad checks between different accounts to withdraw the money before they bounced, left unpaid bills at hotels and restaurants and chartered a private jet without paying. A friend who accompanied her on a trip to Marrakech was left with a bill of about $62,000 on her own card.
Sources
In the game
Paper Heiress
Hotel Larkspur, SoHo, New York, Tuesday, 10 am, 2017. Management has discovered that the wire transfer receipts paying for suite 1104 never reached any bank.
Sorokin was arrested in October 2017 at a rehab clinic in Malibu, California. In April 2019, a Manhattan jury convicted her of grand larceny, attempted grand larceny and theft of services, and acquitted her on the charge tied to the Morocco trip. The sentence was 4 to 12 years in prison, plus about $200,000 in restitution. She was released on parole in February 2021, was detained soon after by immigration authorities for overstaying her visa and, in October 2022, was placed under house arrest in New York while awaiting deportation proceedings.
